


Chill

by MykaWells



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Angst, Death, Depression, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MykaWells/pseuds/MykaWells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can barely remember the moment that she learnt that her daughter had been murdered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chill

**Author's Note:**

> A/N-So this was hanging out on my computer from ages ago when someone asked for an angsty mini-fic about Charles and Helena after Christina’s death. I never quite finished it and forgot it existed. Then I came across it today and finished it up, did a little editing so that it’s presentable. Fair warning that there’s no happiness here. It’s all Helena angst all the time.

It didn’t happen like it does in all of those stories.There was no screaming, no tearing of clothes, none of the weeping that the melodramas love to indulge in. As a matter of fact, Helena can barely remember it happening. She can barely remember the moment that she learnt that her daughter had been murdered.

The days and hours that followed that moment come back to her in flashes. Sometimes impressionistic blurs of color and faces, sometimes snippets of dialogue, her brother’s voice. That’s what Helena remembers most, Charles’ voice. He spoke with softness and patience in place of the haughtiness with which Charles Wells usually addressed his sister. He was kind.

It was he who had rushed to meet her at the house where it happened. He’d pulled her away from the doorway of the room where it had happened. Helena remembered how it looked, remembered being transfixed by the smashed furniture and the blood on the wall and the floor. She remembered him taking her arm and pulling her gently into a hug so that her face rested against his shoulder. It meant that he would have to see the room. Helena imagined he closed his eyes.

Her next clear, sharp memory was of a middle aged man leading her to a basement morgue. The hallway was damp and cold and smelt of mold and something that Helena didn’t want to think about. Voices, French voices drifted in and out of focus. Helena knew French, but conversing in it took energy she did not have. Her brother was there, a step behind her as the somber police officer opened the door to the morgue. Helena did not acknowledge either the officer or her brother as she entered the room.

They’d fought earlier, her and Charles. Or, really, Helena had fought. She wanted to see Christina and Charles advised against it, gently of course. But it felt patronizing and Helena hated being patronized, so she refused to listen. An hour later, Helena couldn’t remember the precise argument she’d made against him, but it must have been half decent, because here they were, walking together down the damp, cold, shadowy hall of a French morgue.

The moment she saw Christina lying there was one of those impressionistic memories. Her brother’s voice in a bad French accent, the white sheet, the light that felt both too harsh and too dim. And it was cold. Mid-summer in Paris, and Helena had an unyielding chill deep in her bones.

After that, Helena didn’t speak. For hours, Helena did not utter a word. The ride home passed in silence. When they returned to the hotel at the end of the day, Charles mumbled something about Helena coming back to his room for a drink. Helena just looked at him, so instead he said “Or maybe we’ll call it an early evening.” She allowed him to hug her for a few seconds before she pulls away and turned to go to her room.

Helena locked the door, pulled all shades and got under the covers. It was nearly 90 degrees and she piled all of the blankets on top of her. She was still shivering. The morgue chill would not leave.

A few years later, as she stood in the Bronzer, that was what Helena remembered. The morgue chill. The way it settled deep in her bones and never truly left. The way it twisted around her chest and slowly suffocated her to the point of madness.

Helena took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Maybe, she thought as the machine roared to life, bronze wouldn’t be so terrible.


End file.
